Testing New Waters
Suzanne
greeting, I can't help thinking of school days when the teacher comes
in and says, "Hello, everyone, my name is Mrs. Smith," and all the
students reply in ragged unison, "Hello, Mrs. Smith." haha) Although
I may be new to this group, I've been cross-stitching (and other
needleworks) since I was a young teen. I'm 42 now, and no I don't mind
telling anyone my age; I've worked hard enough to get here. HA! Most
of the time I've worked with kits or from magazines or whatnot that
gives you a chart, instructions, and floss color. Lately I've decided
to try something new. Although I'm sure you've all heard the
horrible-mother-in-law jokes, I think I have the very best MIL any
woman could have. Even though I could spend pages telling about how
great she is (and being honest), I'll just say she's been more of a
mother to me than my own ever was. For years now I've been wanting to
make a cross-stitch sampler that expresses some of my feelings for her,
but I haven't found anything beyond "mother" samplers. So I finally
decided to make my own. Steve, loving hubby, bought me a book for my
birthday, "The Encyclopedia of Cross Stitch Techniques" by Betty
Barden, and I really love it.
It gave me great ideas for my sampler. Iit's going to have a simple
blackwork border (in black) all around the outside with a heart towards
the middle. The middle of the heart will be in hardanger with a narrow
XS area around that and bordered in backstitch. I might also put a few
beads on it. Coming up with a saying was a little difficult, but I
think I came up with something good. Mom is a truly good Christian
woman and rather old-fashioned, so the sampler's going to read, "When
God gave you a son, He gave me a friend in you." That doesn't sound
hokey, does it? Right now I'm in the middle of charting it all. That
alone is taking me awhile since I don't have a computer program for me
and I have to do it by hand with graph paper. Even though it's a
fairly simple design, I'm not much good at drawing things, especially
straight lines; thank goodness for my little metal ruler. I'm
considering using silk thread for at least part of the sampler. Does
anyone have suggestions on which type or brand? I've never worked with
silk before. Kreinik has a good page that talks about two kinds--mori
and serica--and I was thinking of combining the two for part of it.
Framing it is another big question I have. Although I remember reading
quite a long time ago that needlwork should't have glass over it, I've
since read in other places that it's a good idea. Any thoughts on
that? All this has me both nervous and excited, since I have't gone
out on my own like this before, and I really want it to come out nicely
for Mom.
In case anyone is interested in learning a little more about me: I
live in MS but long to return to the CO Rockies where I grew up. There
are five of us here in our little house--me, hubby, and our 3 cats. I
sure wish we could declare our "kids" as dependents! Guess I've
blabbed on long enough, so I better close.
Happy stitching,
Suzanne
Bonnie
I, too, have a wonderful MIL. I lost my own mother in 1996 to a stroke, and
my MIL has helped to fill that void in my life. I like the saying you have
come up with for your sampler.
As for silk floss, I've used the Kreinik soie d'alger (sp?) and have loved
the results I've gotten with it.
I am 41 and my DH and I have one "dependent" -- a chocolate lab. We are in
western central Texas, but used to live in the Texas Panhandle and
vacationed quite often in Colorado (usually the Lake City area). We have
wonderful memories of great vacations.
Good luck with your sampler. Hope to read more posts from you.
--
Bonnie
WIPs:
EGA's English Band Sampler ICC
Knitted Cardigan
Knitted Amish Throw
Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at
http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/BonnieBlue
"Suzanne" <suze...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2004022220070527590%suzette40@comcastnet...
Meredith
Meredith
Paula C. Hunter
Paula
"Suzanne" <suze...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2004022220070527590%suzette40@comcastnet...
Threaded
and Kreinik is selling it all off at this addy (NO AFFILIATION)
http://kreinik.com/HTML/yard_sale/yard_sale_home.htm
You may want to get to your LNS now, or choose something
else. There's also Caron (Waterlilies and Soie Cristale), Kreinik
Silk Mori (not being discontinued), Madeira silk, and Needle
Necessities Empress Silk, to name a few.
I like Caron Waterlilies for variety of colors, and they also have
matching weights in #5 perle (Watercolours), and # 8 perle
(Wildflowers). This would work well for your hardanger. They
have both varigated and solids.
Sounds wonderful! Let us know how it goes.
Take care, Eva in Dreary, Rainy, Kent, WA, US
> Welcome, Suzanne!
<snipped from Bonnie>
>
> As for silk floss, I've used the Kreinik soie d'alger (sp?) and have loved
> the results I've gotten with it.
> Bonnie
<much snipped from Suzanne>
Meredith
distributor. IIRC, Access Commodities now is.
http://www.au-ver-a-soie.fr/index.htm
Meredith
CANDY CORRIGAN
discontinued. It is a french thread that was distributed by Kreinik.
Kreinuk will no olonger distribute it, but Access Commodities will.
Candy
"Threaded" <XXXemd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:6790e13759884aaa...@news.teranews.com...
Janet M. Davies
My MIL is a great stitcher when I met her about 18 years ago. I feel
in love with the books on her shelves that were beyond cross stitch
and I never looked back.
I'm 40 and live in New Zealand.
Design a stitching good day,
Janet
http://www.jmddesigns.co.nz
http://www.masterstitch.co.uk
Get the JMD Newsletter:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jmdnewsletter/
Pat P
Soie d`Alger - LOVELY to work with.
I envy you your lovely mother-in-law - mine was the MIL from Hell!
John and I have two daughters, a son and 6 grandsons - plus two Cavalier
King Charles Spaniels. I do the stitching - John does the framing (I
treated him to a course on framing just after he retired!)
Pat P
"Suzanne" <suze...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2004022220070527590%suzette40@comcastnet...
Debra
wrote:
Your design sounds lovely. And no, the saying is not hokey. The
great truths in life sometimes sound slightly hokey, but they never
are. Your MIL will love it. Drawing it all out on graph paper is
probably the fastest method. At least it was for me because I've
tried some graphing software but I couldn't get any of it to do
exactly what I wanted it to do in spite of hours of working on it.
Evidently programmers never thought about graphing the kinds of things
I've tried to. I've gone back to graph paper for making my designs.
Oh, and the more you draw out designs, the easier it gets.
As to framing, if your MIL (or anyone else in the house) smokes, has a
lot of dust in the house, lives in a high air pollution area, or might
hang your stitching in the kitchen use glass with a mat or spacers to
keep the glass from touching the stitching. If the house is very
clean and you are pretty sure she will hang it in a bedroom or
livingroom then you can leave off the glass.
I'm 41, and have a very dear hubby and 3 (very spoiled) indoor cats in
south central Virginia.
Debra in VA
Suzanne
> Your design sounds lovely. And no, the saying is not hokey. The
> great truths in life sometimes sound slightly hokey, but they never
> are. Your MIL will love it. Drawing it all out on graph paper is
> probably the fastest method. At least it was for me because I've
> tried some graphing software but I couldn't get any of it to do
> exactly what I wanted it to do in spite of hours of working on it.
> Evidently programmers never thought about graphing the kinds of things
> I've tried to. I've gone back to graph paper for making my designs.
> Oh, and the more you draw out designs, the easier it gets.
> As to framing, if your MIL (or anyone else in the house) smokes, has a
> lot of dust in the house, lives in a high air pollution area, or might
> hang your stitching in the kitchen use glass with a mat or spacers to
> keep the glass from touching the stitching. If the house is very
> clean and you are pretty sure she will hang it in a bedroom or
> livingroom then you can leave off the glass.
>
> I'm 41, and have a very dear hubby and 3 (very spoiled) indoor cats in
> south central Virginia. Debra in VA
Thanks, Debra, yours was the nices reply I've received. Not to say the
others were ones to sneeze at, but you answered most of the questions I
asked.
No, no one in her house smokes, and I doubt she'd let anyone visiting
smoke in there. I myself never have smoked but have had friends who
do, and over the years I've gotten tired of trying to get the smoke
odor out of my house after they left. These days I tell everyone if
they want to smoke, they can do it outside. I also don't let people
smoke in my car. One of the worst times for me was when my ex and I
bought a caper trailer that smelled as though people had been smoking
in it for years. The curtains, seat cushions, and mattress just
reeked, so we threw all of them out and got new stuff.
I'm still working on the chart, but that's mostly because my attention
span gets very short sometimes and I'm always finding other things to
do. Better get back to it and finish up. Gee, maybe when I'm done,
and if it's good enough, I'll enter it into a competition, if I ever
manage to find one.
Happy stitching,
Suze
Debra
<suze...@comcast.netstitch> wrote:
>
>Thanks, Debra, yours was the nices reply I've received. Not to say the
>others were ones to sneeze at, but you answered most of the questions I
>asked.
>No, no one in her house smokes, and I doubt she'd let anyone visiting
>smoke in there. I myself never have smoked but have had friends who
>do, and over the years I've gotten tired of trying to get the smoke
>odor out of my house after they left. These days I tell everyone if
>they want to smoke, they can do it outside. I also don't let people
>smoke in my car. One of the worst times for me was when my ex and I
>bought a caper trailer that smelled as though people had been smoking
>in it for years. The curtains, seat cushions, and mattress just
>reeked, so we threw all of them out and got new stuff.
Most smokers are happy to smoke outside a non-smoking friend's house.
I know I do it all the time. I figure to them my cigarette smells as
bad as cigar smoke does to me. That trailer sounds like it would have
been a clean up problem for me too. I camp a lot and I never have
smoked in a tent or camper trailer. The small closed spaces make it
dangerous to smoke in them. Did you buy or make the replacements for
the tossed out stuff?
>I'm still working on the chart, but that's mostly because my attention
>span gets very short sometimes and I'm always finding other things to
>do. Better get back to it and finish up. Gee, maybe when I'm done,
>and if it's good enough, I'll enter it into a competition, if I ever
>manage to find one.
>
>Happy stitching,
>Suze
Most county fairs have needlework competitions, so I'm sure you will
find one when you want to enter you design in one.
Debra in VA
Suzanne
> On Thu, 4 Mar 2004 17:37:42 -0600, Suzanne
> <suze...@comcast.netstitch> wrote:
>>
>> No, no one in her house smokes, and I doubt she'd let anyone visiting
>> smoke in there. I myself never have smoked but have had friends who
>> do, and over the years I've gotten tired of trying to get the smoke
>> odor out of my house after they left. These days I tell everyone if
>> they want to smoke, they can do it outside. I also don't let people
>> smoke in my car. One of the worst times for me was when my ex and I
>> bought a caper trailer that smelled as though people had been smoking
>> in it for years. The curtains, seat cushions, and mattress just
>> reeked, so we threw all of them out and got new stuff.
>
> Most smokers are happy to smoke outside a non-smoking friend's house.
> I know I do it all the time. I figure to them my cigarette smells as
> bad as cigar smoke does to me.
My dad has smoked off and on for a number of years now, and when he
started he wasn't very considerate about others. My ex and I had to
ask him not to smoke at the table while we were eating, which was hard
for me to do, but smoke really bothers me when I'm eating. That's why
I don't mind sometimes waiting a lot longer for a nonsmoking table in
resturaunts. The last couple times he visited, though, during my
current (and last, meaning it's not going to happen again) marriage, he
smoked outside without me even asking. Awhile back, he told me he's
quit again, but I'm not sure how long it'll last. Now, I'm not trying
to start a nonsmoking lecture, but after my maternal grandmother died
from lung cancer, it really bothers me when Dad smokes. One thing,
though, cigarette smoke doesn't bother me nearly as bad as cigar smoke;
I just about want to gag whenever I smell one.
> That trailer sounds like it would have
> been a clean up problem for me too. I camp a lot and I never have
> smoked in a tent or camper trailer. The small closed spaces make it
> dangerous to smoke in them. Did you buy or make the replacements for
> the tossed out stuff?
We bought stuff. I didn't have the equipment or the time to make
anything myself. Besides, that mattress was so old and worn, we'd have
replaced it even if it didn't stink. We weren't just camping in that
trailer; we had to live in it a few months. My ex was in the Navy then
and received his orders for his next duty station. We thought we'd be
able to stay there in Maine (where he's from), because that's what
they'd told him before. Of course, as anyone who's had anything to do
with the military knows, what they tell you to begin with hardly ever
pans out. We had bought a nice house in Maine, and he got orders to
Missouri. Since I didn't want to be stuck in ME trying to sell the
house while he's in MO, we put the house on the market about as soon as
he got his orders, even though he had a few more months before he had
to report there. We thought if someone bought the house early, maybe
they'd be nice enough to let us stay in the house and pay rent until we
had to move. As luck would have it, the first man to look at the house
wanted it but didn't want to pay our full asking price (which we
thought was reasonable). And even though at first we thought he was
going to let us stay there, he changed his mind and said he wanted to
move right in. He even showed up with some family members while we
were still packing stuff to take with us. Fortunately, the Navy took
care of the main packing and shipping.
We tried finding a house to rent or a long-term motel to stay in for
those few months, but most places didn't want to rent for just a few
months or were too expensive (or didn't want cats). So we eneded up
spending most of the sale money buying a truck and the camper trailer.
Even used they were expensive, plus we needed to keep money for the
move. People who think you make tons of money in the military only
know about officers; the peon enlisted don't make nearly what officers
get. We found a camper park near the base in Brunswick that was open
during the winter, but it wasn't winterized. They kept the electricity
going and had a shower room with toilets open, but that was it. They
turned the water and plumbing off when frost danger started. We had to
carry water in containers from a faucet they kept running on the
outside of one of their buildings. We'd drive down with all our jugs,
fill them up, drive back, and dump them in the trailer's water tank; it
usually took quite a few trips and we just about froze filling up the
jugs. For the sewage, we had to use a portable thingy to dump it in
the campground's main holding tank. That was even more fun than
getting water, since it wasn't quite the thing we wanted in the car
(even if it had fit). At least the wheels on it made it easier.
Fortunately, the camper proved to be well insulated with a good working
furnace, and we stayed cozy enough, even our two cats. One funny thing
about it was that the fridge was right over the furnace, and the
battery-operated clock we had over the fridge would sometimes run
backwards. The first time I saw it, I had to rub my eyes a few times
to make sure I was really seeing it. We figured it must have been the
fluctuation in temperatures between the heater and fridge. The trailer
didn't have lots of leg room, but it did have a nice bathroom, complete
with a tiny shower stall and fush toilet, and plenty of storage. Heck,
our shower had better pressure than the one on the campground, though
we had to turn off the water to soap up or use shampoo, since there was
no getting out of the flow.
What really burned us up was the guy who just about ran us out of our
house. Even though he kept talking about how soon he wanted to move
in, he never did that whole time. We could tell because we often had
to drive by the house, and the driveway was never plowed or had any
tracks in it. As it was, he never did move in. After my ex got out of
the Navy, we moved back to ME and met some old neighbors of ours. The
wife told us it looked like the guy did a little work on the house and
then just sold it. After what we went through because of him!
>
>> I'm still working on the chart, but that's mostly because my attention
>> span gets very short sometimes and I'm always finding other things to
>> do. Better get back to it and finish up. Gee, maybe when I'm done,
>> and if it's good enough, I'll enter it into a competition, if I ever
>> manage to find one.
>>
>> Happy stitching,
>> Suze
>
> Most county fairs have needlework competitions, so I'm sure you will
> find one when you want to enter you design in one.
> Debra in VA
The problem is, there just aren't that many county fairs here in MS.
In the 8 years I've lived here, I've heard of only one, and that's
several miles away from us. I really miss going to fairs; it reminds
me of home. I grew up on a farm in CO. We didn't raise crops or
cattle, but we had quite a few farm animals like a few cattle, sheep,
and lots of chickens. And it was nice and peaceful out there. My ex
and I never lost a chance to go to a county fair and one time went to a
huge one in Los Angelas. Everytime we went to one, we were sure to
visit as much of the animal exhibits as we could. We'd walk into a
barn with cattle, pigs, etc., in it, and all these people would
complain it stank. I'd take a deep whiff, smile and say, "Smells like
home to me." Boy, did I get some funny looks. I guess only farm
people would understand that. *wistful smile*
Well, guess I've droned on long enough. Still want to take a short nap
with DH before he has to leave for work tonight.
Happy stitching,
Suze
Debra
<suze...@comcast.netstitch> wrote:
> One thing,
>though, cigarette smoke doesn't bother me nearly as bad as cigar smoke;
>I just about want to gag whenever I smell one.
The reason cigar smoke smells so bad is the burning of the chemicals
that have been added to them to produce the flavors. Pipe tobacco is
the same way.
>We bought stuff. I didn't have the equipment or the time to make
>anything myself. Besides, that mattress was so old and worn, we'd have
>replaced it even if it didn't stink. We weren't just camping in that
>trailer; we had to live in it a few months.
Snip long story for bandwidth.
Sounds like you had as much "adventure" as your military husband. I
couldn't help but think about all the military TV ads that say join up
and have the adventure of a lifetime, do more before breakfast than
most people do all day, and stuff like that. Life is rarely easy for
military wives.
>The problem is, there just aren't that many county fairs here in MS.
>In the 8 years I've lived here, I've heard of only one, and that's
>several miles away from us. I really miss going to fairs; it reminds
>me of home. I grew up on a farm in CO. We didn't raise crops or
>cattle, but we had quite a few farm animals like a few cattle, sheep,
>and lots of chickens. And it was nice and peaceful out there. My ex
>and I never lost a chance to go to a county fair and one time went to a
>huge one in Los Angelas. Everytime we went to one, we were sure to
>visit as much of the animal exhibits as we could. We'd walk into a
>barn with cattle, pigs, etc., in it, and all these people would
>complain it stank. I'd take a deep whiff, smile and say, "Smells like
>home to me." Boy, did I get some funny looks. I guess only farm
>people would understand that. *wistful smile*
At least half of the fairs around here don't advertize and it is
really hard to find out about them when they don't. The only ads for
my county's fair is little flyers left in the library at the
circulation desk, and they tend to disappear quickly, so unless you
check that desk fairly often you never know when it is. If I don't
see a flyer and don't drive past the driveway leading to the building
it is held in I won't even know it happened. Perhaps there are fairs
that you don't know about, you could check with the Chamber of
Commerce of any nearby towns in your area and they should know about
the fairs even if a date isn't set for the next one yet.
Our fair is very small, a craft selling room, a few art and craft
competitions (mostly run by the local high schools art classes), a
tiny outdoor petting zoo consisting of 3-4 sheep and some bunnies,
sometimes pony rides for kids, free haircuts from the adult hair and
cosmetics night class at the Vo-tec, a small car show, and a few food
vendors. The only real reasons for me to go are the craft sellers and
the Mennonite bakery food booth. But then a really good batch of
sticky buns is hard to come by.
>Well, guess I've droned on long enough. Still want to take a short nap
>with DH before he has to leave for work tonight.
>
>Happy stitching,
>Suze
Debra in VA